As requirements for data storage density increase for magnetic media, cell size decreases. A commensurate decrease in the size of a writer is difficult because in many systems, a strong write field is needed to switch the polarity of cells on a magnetized medium. As a result, writing data to smaller cells on the magnetized medium using the relatively larger write pole may affect the polarization of adjacent cells (e.g., overwriting the adjacent cells). Various recording techniques have been developed to enable gains in areal density capability without significant corresponding decreases in device performance.
One such recording technique is interlaced magnetic recording (IMR). IMR systems may utilize two or more selected written track widths and two or more different linear densities for data writes to alternating data tracks on a storage medium. In these systems, data tracks may be read from or written to the data tracks in a non-consecutive order. For example, data may be written exclusively to a first track series including every other data track in a region of a storage medium before data is written to any data tracks interlaced between the tracks of the first series.